and just in the past hour mohamed morsi met with top judges. morsi issued a decree seizing new powers. it sparked massive riots that killed one protesters. nbc's jim maceda joins us live. we were advised to be careful when saying morsi tried to seize power. specifically run down the decree or what he's seeking here. >> reporter: well, the whole issue of power is what's at stake, and you mentioned that meeting in your lead. that meeting with -- between morsi and top egyptian judges is absolutely critical to this whole playing out of what's going to happen to egyptians in this country. that face-to-face meeting has been going on now for almost four hours. there were indications going into it that a compromise was close, and now this gets into legalistic leads but this is important. it's about a constitutional crisis. it does appear that morsi agrees to a sweep of the decree which effectively allowed him to rule at will. but now, according to this source, it will only apply to sovereign decisions, big decisions, like declaring wars. if it's true,